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When you have situations where you get a lot of jobs quickly and all the customers want their tree jobs done now, whats the best way to go about dealing with that?

Do you ever split the crews up to the point where its just one person on the job site, with a chain saw, cutting things up. Then later you would show up with your trimmer? Or what is the best way to utilize your resources when they are needed all at once?

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When you have situations where you get a lot of jobs quickly and all the customers want their tree jobs done now, whats the best way to go about dealing with that?

Do you ever split the crews up to the point where its just one person on the job site, with a chain saw, cutting things up. Then later you would show up with your trimmer? Or what is the best way to utilize your resources when they are needed all at once?

It's tough, I remind people there are trunk slammer showing up every storm and some of them can do the work just make sure they are insured, if something happens and they are not, it's your insurance, most people do not realize this.

Next the competition is as swamped as we are so where are they going to go? They can't rent commercial chippers, no one in the city will rent a commercial chipper unless you are a commercial, registered company, it's been that way for about 6 years.

There is, at the moment, only one experienced person on each crew which is all you need really, there are a few of us, when we have a chainsaw in hand, we can keep three people busy.

Now the upsell, I have three wood splitters, I am getting $35 an hour to put a person on site splitting their wood for firewood, what a friggin easy sell, no one else does it and people rave about it, we will even stack it for $25. an hour, I hired a group of people with no experience, wood splitting, hauling brush from the saw operator and chipping require next to no experience.

To prepare for this, I trained my non University staff on chainsaw operation and they worked with me for at least a week before I let them loose, this was to prepare for the storms we get this time of the year and it's working, we have 9 crews out there cutting, two crews chipping, six staff splitting and piling, we are booked solid for 5 weeks at the moment, two jobs will take over 20 days, people have the money and want not only trees down but they want us to silviculture their lot.

I bought two more Stihl FS550K's this morning, these are insane brush clearing saws, 56.5 CC, they stop at nothing, we have brush saws but needed more, what I do is use florscent paint and mark all brush/trees to be cut with the client, staff go in and take care of the rest.

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What is your thought on where a skid steer excels? I never understood the design. What advantage does it have over a tractor like yours? Is there any advantage?

Tracks give them traction, without tracks they are useless landscaping, but a skid is very heavy and like excavators the rip the crap out of the soil/sod, now with an excavator I can use the bucket to turn to help eliminate this.

Steve, where a skid would blow my doors off is loading say top soil, mulch, turf etc, it lifts very high and can turn on a dime, he could load a truck in 1/3 of the time as me. Other than that, I can't honestly think of anything in our business where it would be better.

Andy
Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Where i just went to check on some CUT at my local dealer, they didnt recomend me buying a cut if i wanted to get grapples on it, unless of coarse i payed about an extra thousand dollars to have another hydrolic valve added for opening and closing the grapples. And then again i would lose quite a bit of lifting power because of the extra weight of graples.

My main expertise is Tree removal, so like Andy said i could load a lot faster with a skid.

Also i am almost 100% sure there is not a CUT anything like the unit i want to get.

You guys should google it. Its around 13k but for me, if i get all attachments available, i can do alot more than my normal tree removals.

Bobcat S70

and Andy, the CUT i have looked at is 13,800 with loader only, its a 2010 Kubota BX2660

can you check that out for me online and give me your thoughts on it, as to about which of your models it would be similar to.

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Steve, where a skid would blow my doors off is loading say top soil, mulch, turf etc, it lifts very high and can turn on a dime, he could load a truck in 1/3 of the time as me. Other than that, I can't honestly think of anything in our business where it would be better.

It sounds like they would be better for someplace with a hard surface to work on versus someone's yard.

There seems to be this big perceptual image of the skid steer and that they are a very important tool for landscapers but all in all they seem not to be.

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No you guys ( or just you Steve are actually wrong there i believe, there is a place in landscaping for skidsteers still.

My friend has a large skid steer with the rubber tracks,. and he is constantly busy site prepping and he said he gets so many calls because where as a tractor will have a hard time getting up steep inclines and keeping it clean, he can crawl right up them grade & level and have no problems with getting stuck at all.

Keep in mind these are very large jobs though, and not just your run of the mill yard.

Then again he also helps me loading tree debris, and he can go right across any yard and do absolutely 0 cosmetic damage, then we only have 1 are for turns and staging, where as he cleans it up and levels it back really easy. Or he will drive straigh in and back straight out, load in the road way or down the road on the right of way, using 3-4 poiint turns for turning around.

So theres still a place in landscaping, and like i said the bobcat S70 if you would google it or go to bobcat.com you will see that its very light and will fit through a 36 inch gate!

I have used the S70 for a couple of years with another company i ran a crew for.

I have never had an issue with it tearing up the grass as long as it was gradually turned and not zero turned!